While The Lights Are Still On
by JGRhodes
Summary: In the dark he could imagine himself to be whatever he wanted; imagine himself to be worthy of such praise and admiration, to be desired by a stranger who knew nothing of him or his work or his family. For one night, he could be just like everyone else.


Mycroft Holmes knows he is not what some would consider a desirable man. He has neither good looks nor a personable manner. This, in addition to the fact that gay men are sometimes much more superficial than straight women, has lead him to resign himself to a life of solitude.

He sits in a dark bar, rolling his drink back and forth between his hands, mind wandering back to the last time someone had desired him. It was hard to recall. A few years before Uni, perhaps? He'd been involved with a young man from his school – discretely, you understand – but he wasn't sure the boy desired him so much as he desired what Mycroft was willing to give him. The two were not mutually exclusive.

A young man, several years his junior, sits down next to him and leans in. "You alone?" he asks.

Mycroft casts a critical eye over him. Gay. Very, very gay if the hint of underwear above his trousers were anything to go by. "Yes."

The young man smiles at him. "Drunk yet?"

Mycroft tilts his head to the side and gives him a scathing look. "No."

"Do you want to be?"

Mycroft sets his glass down with a deft _clink _and rotates in his chair a bit. "Is there something you need?"

He fiddles with the dog tags around his neck. "Just wondering if you'd like some company is all."

Mycroft catches the dog tags between his fingers and flips them over. "You can tell your friends that the old fag sitting alone in the corner isn't interested in being humiliated, _Sebastian_."

Sebastian, for that was his name according to the dog tags, didn't look like ex-military to the discerning eye. Mycroft supposed it was an internet purchase, designed to attract men who favored a uniform.

"I don't have friends," Sebastian's eyes darkened, became black holes, and Mycroft could feel himself being drawn into their depths. Seconds later, they lightened again, brightened by Sebastian's smile. He brings his mouth to Mycroft's ear. "I do have a hotel room close by. Nothing fancy, but…"

A man of his age should not blush, but he does. He resists the urge to dip his finger under the collar of his shirt and loosen it a bit. Instead he makes eye contact with Sebastian. "And why would I do that?"

"Because you're gorgeous," Sebastian says simply. "And because I have a thing for dapper, older men with beautiful blue eyes."

Against his better judgment, Mycroft finds himself in a small, cheap hotel room a few blocks away. The taxi ride over had been…enlightening. Sebastian's hand on his thigh and warm breath fluttering against his ear as he whispered the most delicious, the most erotic things…

Sitting on the lumpy mattress, Sebastian standing in front of him, he begins to feel the doubt settling in once again. This was a reasonably attractive young man. Why would he want to be here, with a tired old man like himself? He knew it wasn't his looks. Sherlock, for all his eccentricity, had always been the fairer of the two.

"Hush, now," Sebastian says, unbuttoning Mycroft's heavily starched shirt, and Mycroft is pulled from his reverie.

"I didn't say anything." A kiss is pressed to his collar bone and he gulps, his Adams Apple bobbing up and down.

"But you were thinking it," Sebastian all but flings Mycroft's clothing across the room and pushes him back on the bed. "I'm a very…discerning man. I have very specific tasted and I find you simply…_scrumptious_."

He reaches to turn off the bedside lamp, desperate to hide from Sebastian's all-consuming gaze; too shy, mind filled with too many memories of schoolyard taunts and Sherlock's cruelty to believe what the man on top of him was saying while the lights were still on.

He could believe in the dark. In the dark he could imagine himself to be whatever he wanted; imagine himself to be worthy of such praise and admiration, to be desired by a stranger who knew nothing of him or his work or his family. For one night, he could be just like everyone else.

Sebastian stills his hand, mere centimeters from the light switch, and brings it to his mouth for a kiss. "I prefer you as you are," he says, and Mycroft wonders at this man who can read him so well.

* * *

The sun is barely rising when his phone rings. He untangles himself from Sebastian and stumbles across the room the early morning light, rummaging in his trouser pocket for the infernal device.

"Yes?"

"You're needed at the office, Sir," Anthea's voice comes from the other end of the line. "There have been developments."

"I'll be there in one hour," he hangs up.

Sebastian stirs. "Back to the real world?" Sebastian sits up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Mycroft pulls his trousers up and fastens them. "Afraid so. Duty calls."

He watches Sebastian throw the covers back and pad across the room. He's pulling his shirt on and Sebastian reaches out and buttons him up. It's rather…domestic and not at all what he was expecting.

"I want to see you again," he loops Mycroft's tie around his neck and begins tying it. "Day after tomorrow?"

Mycroft smiles. "Of course."

* * *

"I believe we can have him in custody within forty-eight hours, Sir."

"Excellent," he pours himself a drink. "But proceeded with caution. He's dangerous."

* * *

The next morning he receives a text.

_I won't be able to make our date. Spot of trouble. Nothing serious. Text you soon. – x, Sebastian._

His heart sinks.

He allows himself a moment of self-pity, counts slowly to ten, then raises his head and gets back to work. The man had been exceedingly polite throughout the whole affair and Mycroft couldn't bring himself to hate him even the slightest bit. It was possible that after the alcohol had worn off and his hangover had passed that Sebastian realized he'd gone to bed with a…less than desirable partner.

But he couldn't think about that now. Sherlock had broken into Baskerville and his men, according to preliminary reports, had captured James Moriarty. His personal life would have to wait till later.

He travels to the interrogation cells that afternoon. Dark, damp places where sane people do not go if they wish to leave with said sanity intact. He joins his…comrades…in the observation room. He's senior to all of them, and knows they shouldn't be here, but he indulges their curiosity this once. James Moriarty is quite the catch, after all.

"He's a piece of work, this one," Brown says when Mycroft enters.

"Developments?" he asks.

"None. Stares off into the dark like a lunatic."

"He _is_ a lunatic, Brown."

"Yes, sir."

For the first time Mycroft turns to the two-way mirror and gets a good look at the infamous James Moriarty.

The bottom drops out of his stomach. "Sebastian…?"

"Sir?"

"Out! Everyone out! Now!" It's the closest he will ever come to hysterics, he is a Holmes after all, but it's more than enough to send his underlings scurrying for the door.

He recalls the interrogator and, pausing outside the door, takes a deep breath before going inside.

Moriarty doesn't move. He remains staring into the darkness. Mycroft deliberately walks around the chair and into his field of vision.

The man has the audacity to look shocked at his presence.

"Well played, Mr. Moriarty. Well played," he leans back against the glass.

Moriarty throws his head back and laughs. "This is so perfect I couldn't have planned it better myself! The universe does have a wonderful sense of humor, don't you think?"

Mycroft feels his blood pressure rising, skyrocketing to the moon. "Don't try and tell me you didn't plan this!"

"No, no, no! I'm telling you I wish I _had_ planned it. It would have been so much more sexy! Can you imagine?"

He hits Moriarty so hard his head snaps to the side. "Don't lie to me. It was all a trick."

Moriarty's head oscillates from side to side and he smiles. "Oh, but it was real. Every moment of it. Come on! You remember! I know I do. You suck cock magnificently. And that collar bone. Mmmmmmmm. Tell me, is the mark I left still there? Did you run your fingers over it, wondering if I would do it again the next time I saw y-ah!"

Mycroft hits him again.

"Good! Very good! I do love a bit of pain with my sex," Moriarty's grin grows wider, more manic. "But next time do me a favor and call me Jim. I soooooo hated hearing you call out 'Sebastian' when I fucked you."

Mycroft grabs the front of his shirt and slams him against the chair. "Why? Why?"

Moriarty tips his head up, asking for a kiss. "I wanted you."

Mycroft releases him but doesn't back away.

"It's ironic, isn't it? I go chasing after your brother for over a year and yet somehow I wind up in bed with you, without even knowing it. I guess I'm Holmes-sexual! Though, I do find I have a new favorite flavor."

"You're a liar."

Moriarty leans in and whispers in his ear, his voice so tender and reminiscent of the night they spent together that what he says sends Mycroft's heart into his mouth. "Will you believe me, Mr. Holmes, if I carry on our tradition from our first night together and always tell you the truth while the lights are still on?" he casts a pointed glance at the florescent lights dangling above them. "I still want you. I still desire you. I'll never get enough of you. I'll do anything to have you."

"That will never happen."

Moriarty lets out a breathy sigh. "Oh, Mycroft. So stubborn! I'll make you a deal, then. Will that make you happy? A kiss and I will surrender."

"What?"

"Kiss me, right now, and I'll tell you everything you want to know. Everything!"

Mycroft steps back. "You disgust me," he says.

"You disgust yourself. But that's one of the reasons I like you."

Mycroft turns heel and leaves the room, sweeping past Moriarty, eyes fixed on the door.

He finds the interrogator loitering down the hall.

"Break him."


End file.
